LGD's prototype rollable TV (unveiled in 2018) rolls vertically, inside a single case at the bottom. According to a new patent recently awarded in the US (USPTO #10,162,387) Samsung has a different design in mind - a TV that rolls horizontally, as you can see in the image above.

In 2017, we heard reports that LGD decided to cancel the LCD production at the P10 fab and focus exclusively on OLED displays. A new report from Business Korea confirms this report - and says that LG also decided to postpone the production at the P10 as the shift to OLED technologies is challenging - especially as LGD intends to produce OLEDs on 10.5-Gen substrates for the first time at the P10 fab.

2018 is soon over - and this has been a somewhat challenging year for the OLED industry. The beginning of the year saw a slump in OLED shipments following disappointing iPhone X shipments, slower adoption in Chinese smartphone brands and delays in OLED capacity increases by OLED makers. Towards the end of the 2018, however, the industry started to pick up but OLED adoption is still expected to be slower than what we hoped for in 2017.

Here are the top 10 stories posted on OLED-Info in 2018, ranked by popularity (i.e. how many people read the story):

BOE now announced plans for another large investment in a new flexible OLED fab, this one in Fuzhou, Fujian. This fab will be similar to BOE's other fabs - a 6-Gen (1500×1850 mm) line with a capacity of 48,000 substrates. The investment will total 46.5 billion Yuan (about $6.75 billion USD). This fourth line will bring BOE's total flexible OLED capacity to 192,000 monthly substrates.

In the video you can see all of JOLED's new prototypes. First up is the Automotive demo - JOLED demonstrated two panels, a 12.3" 1920x720 (167 PPI) panel and a 12.2" 1920x1280 (180 PPI) panel. Both are printed on LTPS backplanes (as do the rest of the company's small and medium sized panels). JOLED's latest investors, Denso and Toyoto Tsusho, are both helping the company with its entry into the automotive display market.

LGD's largest customer is LG Electronics, but the company is also enjoying strong sales to Japanese TV makers. The Nikkei Asian Review says that in 2018 the company will ship 500,000 panels to Sony and 200,000 to Panasonic, and next year it expects to increase its shipments to Sony to 850,000 units and to Panasonic to 300,000 units. LG Electronics OLED TV market share will be around 50-60% in 2019.

IHS says that OLED panels take up to 61.1% of the total smartphone display market in Q3 2018, by revenues. OLED sales reached $6.6 billion in the quarter, out of a $10.7 billion market.

The leading OLED producer is still of course Samsung Display - which accounted for 93.3% of the total smartphone OLED panel market (and 94.2% of the flexible OLED panel market). Samsung's OLED dominance also helps it to enjoy a 57.8% market share in the total smartphone market (LCD+OLED) - far ahead of BOE (7.8%) and Tianma (7.7%) which are the 2nd and 3rd largest smartphone display producers.

In CES 2018, LG Electronics demonstrated its 65" rollable OLED TV prototype, showing how such a display can be used to create a TV that rolls into its base. Last month we reported that LG plans to showcase its rollable TV again at CES 2019, and now Bloomberg reports that LG aims to actually release this TV as a commercial product in 2019, citing "a person familiar with the matter".

According to Taiwan-based Topology Research Institute, Sony, Oculus and HTC will continue and dominate the VR market in 2019. Sony will continue to be the leading VR vendor, with sales of its HMD to grow 10% in 2019 to reach 2.2 million units.

The second largest will be Oculus Rift, which will see a surge of 80% in shipments to reach 1.7 million in 2019. HTC will also see a nice sales increase of 33% and the Topology expects HTC to ship 800,00 VR HMDs in 2019. In total, Topology expects the market to grow 29% to reach 6 million units in 2019.